Planning & Policies – Page 6

The onerous burden of responsibility

Imagine you’re in high school one day around the end of the year. It’s warm outside, sunny, and you want out of the stuffy classroom. You’re not paying attention. You’re looking out the window, fidgeting. Daydreaming, miles away. The teacher drones on and on but you don’t hear a single word. Then, the bell rings. Just before the class leaves, you hear the teacher remind everyone that you are responsible for their safety, you are responsible for their wellbeing, for their health. For all the kids in the school. And their parents, too. And if you don’t do everything right, ……… click below for more ↓

Committee system still broken, still in use

2017-02-03 2017-02-03 Collingwood / Council / Ethics and behaviour / Planning & Policies / Publicity & Communications2 Comments

“A committee,” wrote Sir Barnett Cocks, former Clerk of the UK’s House of Commons, “is a cul-de-sac down which ideas are lured and then quietly strangled.” How very appropriate those words strike us as we gaze at Collingwood’s ineffective, severely broken standing committee system. The brainchild of the interim CAO, and the very model of his business style, it has been fervently embraced by The Block. Yet to outsiders, the committee system has been a bureaucratic quagmire of redundancy and ineptness since its inception. It was a mistake to continue it after the first meeting, when most observers realized it ……… click below for more ↓

Collingwood’s casino roulette

2017-01-29 2017-01-30 Collingwood / Council / Ethics and behaviour / Planning & PoliciesLeave a comment

I want you to read the following motion carefully. Take your time. It was passed by the former council in March, 2013 in response to the Ontario Lottery & Gaming Corporation (OLG) coming forward with a proposal to locate a gambling (“gaming”) facility in Collingwood: WHEREAS a properly developed Integrated Destination Resort which includes but is not limited to a world class accommodation hotel, executive meeting and convention facilities, a large seating capacity theatre, restaurants, spa and boutique casino could benefit the economic growth of the community; AND WHEREAS Council of the Town of Collingwood may be interested in becoming ……… click below for more ↓

The Block torpedoes the hospital, again

2017-01-28 2017-01-28 Collingwood / Council / Development & Growth / Ethics and behaviour / Planning & Policies2 Comments

When their sole-sourced consultant’s report failed to give The Block the high ground to oppose the Collingwood General & Marine Hospital’s redevelopment plan, the weasels on council and in the administration decided to undermine the hospital from a different direction. And they hired another consultant. That’s right: wasting $30,000 of your hard-earned tax dollars on one sole-sourced consultant to “peer review” the CG&M’s already peer-reviewed report wasn’t enough. So they hired a second consultant because the first didn’t say what The Block wanted. How much that second consultant cost taxpayers has not yet been revealed. The first consultant’s report just ……… click below for more ↓

Collingwood Council’s missed initiatives

2017-01-15 2017-01-15 Collingwood / Council / Development & Growth / Ethics and behaviour / Planning & Policies / Publicity & Communications / Taxes / User fees and costs / Utilities: electricity and waterLeave a comment

The word initiative derives from the Latin word initiare “to begin.” Since 1600, it has meant “introduce to some practice or system,” “begin, set going.” While any sort of action or engagement, positive or negative, can be classified as an initiative, generally one refers only to positive enterprises when describing political or social initiatives. I know, I know: you immediately want to interrupt and say, “but Ian, The Block don’t do anything positive, and you cannot talk about a council’s initiatives when none have occurred.” I agree, but bear with me. It’s true that, when measuring the positive actions begun ……… click below for more ↓

Council is privatizing our utilities

2017-01-12 2017-01-14 Collingwood / Council / Ethics and behaviour / Planning & Policies / User fees and costs / Utilities: electricity and water6 Comments

Collingwood council and its administration are planning to privatize both our water and electricity utilities. All, of course, without consulting you, the public. Some members of council have even stated – with a straight face, mind you – they would ask for your input at a later date. A date long after it’s too late for public input to matter, of course. They have already engaged in negotiations with outside companies to take over our utilities, all the while pretending they were just “kicking the tires.” They appointed their lawyer to oversee the sale. Consultants made reports painting the existing ……… click below for more ↓

Council’s report card: Year 2, part 1

2016-12-18 2016-12-18 Collingwood / Council / Ethics and behaviour / Humour & Satire / Planning & PoliciesOne Comment

As we reach the end of our Council’s second year in office, halfway through its mandate, it is time again to assess the collective performance and list the accomplishments of our elected officials. To avoid accusations of egregious negativity, I will list council’s accomplishments first. And to avoid further accusations of meandering through overly long diatribes (mea culpa, I do ramble a bit…), I will split this post into two pieces. The good (this post) and the bad (a subsequent post). For a historical comparison, you might wish to refer to my analysis of council’s first year prior to reading ……… click below for more ↓

Collingwood’s own Gong Show, part 2

2016-12-17 2016-12-18 Collingwood / Council / Ethics and behaviour / Planning & Policies / Utilities: electricity and waterOne Comment

As promised, here is the second part of the Gong Show analysis from December 12th’s council meeting. Like I said earlier, it’s perhaps more like a Keystone Cops or Abbott and Costello skit than the TV show. As always, you can follow along on the Rogers Community TV broadcast, starting at 2:16:30. Laugh aloud at the zany, misinformed antics of your elected representatives as they fumble and stumble their way through an agenda of items they clearly have no clue about. You should start with part 1 of my review, if you haven’t already read it. And by the end of ……… click below for more ↓

Stumbling towards the utility’s demise

2016-12-10 2016-12-10 Collingwood / Council / Ethics and behaviour / Planning & Policies / Utilities: electricity and water2 Comments

This week, Collingwood Council met in a special meeting to discuss an request from its utility partner, PowerStream, to waive some conditions of the shareholder agreement. This meeting appears to have been called by the interim CAO, which seems to me to usurp the mayor’s authority, but we know the administration – in partnership with The Block – has long been pulling the strings in this town to serve its own ends. Plus the meeting was held mid-day at the fire hall; a time and location that appears intended to deter both public and media presence. Well while the public ……… click below for more ↓

Corruption, Collingwood & the Collus Board

2016-12-06 2016-12-06 Collingwood / Council / Planning & Policies / Utilities: electricity and water3 Comments

The Most Secretive Council Ever has comfortably assumed the mantle of The Most Secretive and Corrupt Council Ever. As I warned in a previous post, The Block was going to appoint someone’s friends to the Collus-PowerStream board – and do it both illegally and unethically. And last Monday, they told us they had done it. Fait accompli. But as you have learned this term, laws, procedures, ethics and morals are for others to obey, not for The Block. According to a story in The Connection (apparently the EB couldn’t be bothered to report on it online and I don’t get their print ……… click below for more ↓

No, Brian: Elvis isn’t in the CBSP

2016-12-04 2016-12-04 Collingwood / Council / Culture / Ethics and behaviour / Festivals & Events / Planning & Policies / Publicity & CommunicationsLeave a comment

At the Nov. 28 Council meeting (seen here on Rogers TV), Deputy Mayor Brian Saunderson blathered on in cliché-rich, lawerly manner (starting 1:14:05) about how much the Elvis Festival means to his “Community-Based Strategic Plan” (1:16:18) – that committee-based wishlist which was neither strategic nor a plan. What does he mean when he claims that a report has “galvanized the question quite nicely”? Galvanized? Does he know what that word means? It’s not what he appears to think it does… it means to “shock or excite (someone), typically into taking action.” A staff report is seldom shocking or exciting, and ……… click below for more ↓

Muzzling the airport board

2016-12-02 2016-12-02 Collingwood / Council / Ethics and behaviour / Planning & PoliciesOne Comment

The Collingwood Airport Board wants to get its own legal opinion about the Clearview Aviation Business Park request for a non-binding letter of intent to negotiate access to the airport. Seems reasonable for the board charged with oversight of the airport to want to make sure that any decisions made best represent their mandate and the viability of the airport itself. The Block and Collingwood’s administration are opposed to them getting one. Are they afraid of what that opinion would say? That it wouldn’t come from a lawyer already instructed as to what to say? That they couldn’t control the ……… click below for more ↓

Obstructionism killing 1,600+ jobs & growth

2016-11-03 2016-11-03 Collingwood / Council / Development & Growth / Ethics and behaviour / Planning & Policies3 Comments

Just when you thought Collingwood Council couldn’t set the bar any lower, they go and move it down another notch. On Monday, Oct. 31, The Block had a chance to save face, rectify their blatant mismanagement of the Collingwood Regional Airport development and save the proposed, $300 million, 260-acre, industrial park that could bring 400 full-time and 1,300 part-time or temporary jobs to the area. They didn’t. No surprises, of course. Barry Burton, the deputy mayor of Clearview Township, made a presentation to our council, Monday*, reiterating his community’s commitment to the development and growth at the airport and asking ……… click below for more ↓

Fulfilling a role? Who are you kidding?

2016-10-26 2016-10-26 Collingwood / Council / Ethics and behaviour / Planning & Policies / Publicity & CommunicationsLeave a comment

The bite of irony is in the air when a flimsy piece of blatant Block propaganda masquerading as an official media release is published by the town. It has the misleading headline, “Town fulfilling role in hospital redevelopment process,” but only delusional sycophants won’t read it as a Block screed. When did town media releases shill for a group at the table, not represent the will of council as a whole? Did the mayor approve this dreck before it went out? I suspect not. * It’s ironic that last term’s council was criticized by some of the very people who ……… click below for more ↓

Collus report debunks Block conspiracies

2016-10-10 2016-10-10 Collingwood / Council / Development & Growth / Ethics and behaviour / Planning & Policies2 Comments

Every year, the Ontario Energy Board (OEB) publishes the scorecard of local distribution companies (LDCs). Across the province, more than 70 LDCs are ranked and rated according to performance, customer service, efficiency, progress and other measurable data for residents to see how their utility is doing. It’s a thing called openness and transparency. As the OEB notes: The scorecard includes traditional metrics for assessing a distributor’s services, such as frequency of power outages, financial performance and costs per customer. In addition, performance results for 2014 and onward will include a number of new metrics that directly reflect the customer experience, ……… click below for more ↓